Nixon's First Cover-up: The Religious Life of a Quaker President

by H. Larry Ingle

Have you ever thought you completely knew a story, inside and out, only to see some new information that shatters what you had come to accept as unquestioned fact? Well, Richard Nixon is that story, and Nixon’s First Cover-up is that new information.

With few exceptions, the religious ideologies and backgrounds of U.S. presidents is a topic sorely lacking in analysis. H. Larry Ingle seeks to remedy this situation regarding Nixon—one of the most controversial and intriguing of the presidents. Ingle delves more deeply into Nixon’s Quaker background than any previous scholar to observe the role Nixon’s religion played in his political career.

Nixon’s unique and personally tailored brand of evangelical Quakerism stayed hidden when he wanted it to, but was on display whenever he felt it might help him advance his career in some way. Ingle’s unparalleled knowledge of Quakerism enables him to deftly point out how Nixon bent the traditional rules of the religion to suit his needs or, in some cases, simply ignored them entirely. This theme of the constant contradiction between Nixon’s actions and his apparent religious beliefs makes Nixon’s First Cover-up truly a groundbreaking study both in the field of Nixon research as well as the field of the influence of religion on the U.S. presidency. Forty years after Nixon’s resignation from office, Ingle’s work proves there remains much about the thirty-seventh president that the American public does not yet know.

Genres: History

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 6, 2015

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating study by a respected Quaker historian, who makes abundantly clear that he does not like Nixon (a feeling that I happen to share). I was searching for something sympathetic in Ingle's portrait of Nixon but found nothing. And maybe Nixon was totally despicable, though I would like to "answer that of God in" him, to use Quaker lingo. Nevertheless, I recommend this book highly for all of us baby-boomers.

[Genie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some interesting tidbits in this book about Nixon and his Quaker upbringing. For an academic historian, Ingle had some surprising instances of lapsed precision, particulalry in his footnotes. Also interesting was the author’s insistence and seeming contradictions throughtout that Nixon had not been impacted by his Quaker heritage but still insisted on analyzing the rest of his life according to the assumption that he maintained his Quaker faith.